My late father (he passed on more than a decade ago) was a religious-school teacher before the war ended it prematurely. After the war, we moved from place to place before we finally made our permanent home in Kampung Batu 5, Jalan Bakri, Muar, Johor.
When I began schooling in 1948 at the age of seven, the war had ended, but the Malaysian Emergency (1948-1960) was about to begin. My father then worked at a five-acre rubber plantation owned by my maternal great-grandmother. In simple terms, I came from a rubber tapper family (on my father’s side).
I remember a time, somewhere in early 50s, when the people in our village ate rice only a couple of days in a month.
Those were difficult times. Many of our village people were living below the poverty line. That was when there was no global demand for rubber.
Then, the Korean War broke out and the price of rubber sheets shot up like never before. Life became easier. As they say, things have to get worse before they get better.
What I read recently in our local media of the difficult life of some of our rubber tappers, reminds me of my early childhood in Muar during those difficult years.
On Saturday, a Malay-language daily reported on rubber tappers who only earn RM400 a month.
Zali Sani, 56, a rubber tapper from Kampung Tengah, Gemencheh, Negri Sembilan, told reporters that he earned RM400 to RM500 a month, hardly sufficient for his family of three.
He has to look constantly for a part-time job to keep his head above water.
When asked if he receives aid from Risda (Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority),
Zali said it only gave RM500 a year.
I reckon many among us can still remember that in July 2014, Risda had agreed to give aid amounting to RM500 to each of the 160,000 rubber tappers in the country who found themselves in financial difficulty because of the falling rubber price in the global market. Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal (then the minister in charge of Risda) said the aid would be given out in two weeks’ time, at the latest, before Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
Mohd Imran Johari, 26, a father of three, earns RM700 a month from rubber tapping. During the rainy season, life became very hard for him, he said. The cost of infant formula, diapers and clothes for his three children easily come to RM500 a month.
Ibrahim Yahya, 60, told reporters who met him in Baling, Kedah, that he had been tapping rubber for 40 years. For him, life has never changed – a hand-to-mouth existence. Life is especially hard for people who tap rubber on other people’s lands like him. He and his wife have been tapping rubber daily, at an average of 700 trees per day, drawing a nett income of RM250 per month. An equivalent amount is retained by the owner of the rubber land as his share of the proceeds.
Zakaria Ahmad, 53, who has been tapping rubber since his younger days, admits that he has no savings whatsoever. Everything he earns has to be spent on food for the family and school expenses for his children.
What he said really touched a chord in me and almost brought tears to my eyes: “Village people have given up hope on our government. Our leaders no longer care for the rubber tappers. We cannot depend any more on the government. The aid that the government gives us is only baja susu while rubber tappers themselves have to get their own baja getah. A bag of baja getah costs us RM100. What is there left for us to buy our food?”
Rubber tapper Zurina Jusoh, 32, from Kampung Seri Dacing, Sik, Kedah, wrote a full-page letter to a Malay language daily recently. I hope our government leaders can pay heed to what she wrote.
Together with her husband, they earn RM40 per month tapping rubber on somebody else’s land. With no one to look after her two children and unable to pay any baby-minder, she has no choice but to take them along to the rubber estate.
Zurina’s heart-rending letter and the photo of her rocking her baby to sleep in the rubber plantation was featured in several portals. I hope something good can come out of this.
Last November, Bangkok Post reported that the Thai government had approved measures worth 13 billion baht (RM3.64 billion) to help rubber farmers and support falling prices. The report said that the government would pay a direct subsidy of 1,500 baht per rai (1,600 sq m) for up to 15 rai per household, for about 850,000 households. The government subsidy is actually higher than the 1,250 baht per rai requested by rubber farmers.
The report added that the government would take loans from the state-owned Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives and start paying farmers the following month, in December.
Documents outlining the Thai government’s new rubber measures show that they will cover production, education and living expenses of rubber tappers and their families.
Thai rubber farmer Samai Sribang, 58, said that while he welcomed these measures, he felt they were not enough. “I would rather see the government help raise rubber prices nationwide,” he had said.
Back on our own shores, almost a year ago, an Astro Awani report on Jan 16 reported that the Kedah government had given out RM10,000 worth of food aid to 400 rubber tappers.
That, of course, was a one-off deal for that year. What about 2016 and beyond? Elsewhere, who sheds tears for our rubber tappers?
The writer formerly served the Attorney-General’s Chambers before he left for private practice, the corporate sector and academia